SG24 – Day 3
One day I’ll be too old to be standing on a couch in a drag bar next to a transsexual cheering on drag queens at 1.30am. For better or worse, that time is yet to come.
For all of the multitude of wrong that is the Hard Rock Cafe, the Singapore establishment has been hosting a regular Saturday night drag performance Riot! for some time. For 2-3 hours they close the main area and let Becca D’Bus and other queens take over the stage (while there are still diners upstairs, who are probably wondering what they’ve walked into).
I’d booked a seat in the “nice” area, far enough back from the stage but where I still had a good view. It wasn’t a sell-out so Becca herself, prior to the show, asked if I wanted to sit closer to the stage. I pointed out I didn’t want to be the tall white guy at the front blocking the view, and Becca shadily replied there were already a table of white women there to do that. The show kicked off with a bit of stand up by Becca, and it was on point, talking about the artform, how it is in Singapore (where marriage equality is yet to happen), and of hope for the future. Then came the performances, from local queens both young and old, lots of emotional lip-syncing. Then came an interlude for audience participation, where people who had birthdays in September were dragged up on stage to be lightly spanked while we sang Happy Birthday. Then more powerful performances, including Becca doing a spoken word reading of “poetry”, which turned out to be “Spice Up Your Life”. A few more performances and they were done.
The queens were entertaining, the crowd had a great time, I got some selfies with the queens afterwards and thanked them — not only are they putting on performances such as this, they do raise spirits and give hope for so many growing up today and trying to find their identity. To be doing this in a country such as Singapore, which has somewhat stricter freedoms than than other democracies, takes an incredibly impressive level of strength. I’m not talking down Singapore here — let’s face it, all democracies have their limits on how far they allow or tolerate or classify subversion/rebellion, UK, Australia, USA, all do, and in the USA especially there are some wanting to dial these back (don’t get any stupid ideas Australia). In summary: Singapore drag queens are amazingly strong and they rock.
In the aftershow buzz, one of the queens mentioned a later bar show at a place called Tuckshop (what else) and gave me the address. With nothing better to do, I grabbed a rideshare and headed over. The entry deal there is it’s about $40 to get in before 11pm, and you get a wristband that gives you select free drinks. Singapore: one night I’m slowly imbibing 30 year old whisky in a leather chair, the next I’m sipping Jim Beam White and Coke from a plastic glass full of ice on a vinyl couch. Having had several beers at Riot!, and still not wanting to be that messy white drunk guy, I just had the 1, making for a rather expensive drink. Over the next hour or two the place filled up, until it was almost bursting at the seams with young local gay men, older white gay men, a couple of lesbians, some folks whose gender is no one’s business but their own, a coupls of groups of young straight women with their boyfriends, and me, the token cis old white guy (by then I was only drinking water so I was straight in more than one sense of the word).
A bit after 12, out came the queens, ground rules were explained (don’t step on the low stage when performers are on, do tip when we wave the net at you, don’t stand on the tables) and then a queen was lip-synching to Whitney Houston. I’d like to be able to rate the performance, but there are a lot of tall young gay men in Singapore, so I saw little. After the first set, I spied some tall folks whose gender is no ones business but their own had been standing on couches at the back and watching, so asked them if they had room for me to squeeze in. All good, they were having a great time, the person I was next to was from the Philippines, and worked as a nurse . We managed a quick chat about drag, but I’m getting harder of hearing, especially in loud nightclubs, so it wasn’t much of a conversation. Then came the queens for the second set, and we stood and cheered (and kept an eye on a poor guy who’d been dragged along by his girlfriend, had possibly had the best part of a bottle of Monkey Shoulder whisky, hadn’t known he was in a LGBTQIA+ bar, was then helped by a couple of folks to empty the contents of his stomach, and then was sat beside me with a handy plastic bag — I’d thought he was going to puke into the icebucket he had spent some time leaning against). Cheering and second set done, me being old and tired, I bid my new companions good night and took a rideshare back to my hotel.
This morning happened too quickly, and the only thing for it was to head to a local dim sum place for some dumplings, chilli oil, and pu-erh tea. It hit the spot, giving me the strength and energy to head to Sim Lim Square to check out the electronic shops there. Lots of shops doing repairs, selling cables and bits, some quite cheap, and many brand names I wasn’t familiar with. Nothing really grabbed my fancy — while the prices certainly seemed cheaper than Funan, call it brand name snobbery but I didn’t feel like spending without doing some research. I’d thought I might find some cool gaming stuff like key caps or weird taky things, but there wasn’t a lot to be found.
From there it was off to the Albert Centre for more food. There I found a stall that fit both of my hawker centre rules: a queue, and a cook who probably fed Lee Kwan Yew as a youngster, and that stall was selling congee, of course. As I waited, I saw they were freshly cooking the youtiao dough sticks, which had me sold. The congee was okay, definitely that texture that I don’t love, but now at least seem not to hate, full of flavour, and the egg not overly dominating the flavour. The fresh youtiao was heavenly.
The next stall over, Bedok chwee kueh, also had a queue, so full of congee I joined it. Bedok chwee keuh are ricecakes, covered in a wonderful sauce full of sweetness and umami, and were 60c each (minimum 2). I grabbed a couple to take away.
I took a bit of a wander around the area, checking out stalls and markets to get more pressies for the folks back home. My energy was certainly lagging, a mix of little sleep, crowds, and the weather building up for another storm, so i headed back to the hotel for a bit of a lie down (and eat some of the Bedok chwee kueh, which were amazing, lots of flavour, i wish I was feeling better to enjoy them properly.
A bit more rested, I headed out to an industrial area to check out a D&D gaming shop, Tableminis. The have a bit of space on the 8th floor of a non-descript building across the road from an MRT station (other tenants include Goldigga Pte Ltd and Tipsy Collective Pte Ltd), where their focus is on providing a space where people can come and play D&D, with a library of resource books, miniatures, and other equipment, as well as rooms that can be hired. They also have merch, not a huge range but some impressive finds included a number of the limited cover versions of the source books. Managed to grab a pressie or two there. I then tried another gaming shop in Chinatown, but they were almost exclusively Warhammer so came away empty, settling for grabbing some souvenir type pressies from the street markets.
Headed back to the hotel, bouncing through Clarke Quay, and walking back past the Funan to check out the Old Fire Station/Heritage Museum as recommended by D. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the history of Singapore’s emergency fire services, from various hardships, to the ingenuity in adapting the service to the area, to the people who have taken on the responsibility of the role. Not a large museum, but full of little poignant things.
Tonight I’m off to meet an old pal N, whose lived here for a bunch of years and has promised me some tourist-free food experiences. Then it’ll likely be a final dram at the Auld Alliance, before packing back at the hotel hoping everything will fit, before a lousy night sleep ahead of a morning flight home.